Normally, no animal sacrifice is allowed to be offered after the afternoon daily sacrifice. Examining the exceptions to this rule lead the Rabbis to make a strange declaration: The process of atonement that is begun when one brings a chatat, a sin offering, is not complete until the Kohanim have eaten from the sacrifice. Why does the expiation of a sin require the Kohen to partake of the sacrifice in addition to the sacrifice being placed on the altar?
Ruth Satinover Fagen is the head of the Limudei Qodesh Department at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School, where she is also Faculty Educator. Her greatest joy in life is studying Talmud, or any other Jewish text with any of her four children.